


A Study in Sherlock Holmes

by celie33



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Starts out pretty general. Some fluff. Pre-Slash. Eventually slashy.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celie33/pseuds/celie33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John's blog starts attracting unexpected attention from Sherlock, a publisher, and a murderer. </p><p>There will eventually be some Johnlock action, but nothing too graphic. At least, not that I'm planning now. Things might change.</p><p>1/13/14 - This one is on hold for a bit, because I got all caught up in my other story, After the Crash. Check it out.  I'll come back to this one when I'm finished there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Troll on the Blog

While he would never admit it, Sherlock was quite pleased that John’s blog was so popular. He didn’t always appreciate the extra attention it earned him. He was arrogant, but he wasn’t vain. The two character traits didn’t necessarily go hand in hand. And he would be lying if he said that he wasn’t flattered by John’s attention, but that wasn’t it either. He was...honored that John had found him a source of inspiration. He did his best to keep things interesting so that John would have plenty to write about.

Over the years, the blog had attracted quite a following. John spent a few hours every morning answering emails and responding to comments. He had asked Sherlock to help out with that on one occasion, when he was in bed with the flu and wasn’t able to focus on the computer screen for more than a few minutes. They had just finished up with a particularly intricate case, and Sherlock was in a generous mood. He had also been especially difficult during the case, so he felt that he owed it to John to look after him and some of his more mundane responsibilities.

Normally, the commenters on the blog were quite civil. They asked questions and made little jokes at Sherlock’s expense about his “spectacular ignorance” regarding simple things, but nothing too harsh. There were a few trolls that worked their ways in now and then, usually family and friends of the criminals that Sherlock helped catch and convict.

He had brought John a bowl of the soup that Mrs. Hudson had left simmering on the stove late that morning. John had eaten a few bites and finished most of the glass of water before falling back to sleep. Sherlock took the still open laptop from John’s lap, and sat down at the desk with it. He could have gone downstairs, but he wanted to be stay close by in case John needed something.

John had been in the middle of a very patient response to a comment on “The Proof is in the Paint.” The respondent was questioning the particular chain of reasoning that Sherlock had used to deduce that the callus on trigger finger of the victim had come from endless hours of playing paintball and not from firing a gun that shot actual bullets. John had been very politely explaining the different materials used in the manufacture of the paintball gun. Sherlock, however, couldn’t believe that anyone had needed to ask a question with such an obvious answer. He wanted to delete John’s patient (and very thorough) explanation and call the woman out for her idiocy, but, instead, he finished the sentence that John had been writing and posted the comment. He then quickly signed in under his own name because he couldn’t resist adding his own little postscript - “Obviously.”

The next few comments were mostly compliments, which Sherlock either ignored, or, as was John’s habit when he encountered a particularly thoughtful reply to his post, dashed off a simple, but sincere “Thank you for your kind words. They mean a great deal.” This, of course, soon began to bore him. He started responding as himself, but he did make an attempt to be civil. Out of respect to John, of course. He tried to be brief, and he tried to keep his disdain for the commenters to a simple “Obviously.”

When he had gone through all the comments on the current post, he decided to look back over some of the older posts. John was still asleep, and he thought that it might help stave off the boredom.

When he stumbled upon a recent comment on a very old case, one that John had given the unfortunate name of “The Conflicted Corpse” -

“What were you thinking, John? Really?” he whispered.

-he was more than a little irritated. He was livid. Some “Anonymous” commenter was insulting Sherlock. That irked him, but it was only a brief comment. Insignificant, really, when compared to the attack targeted at John.

_You write these posts as if you are an integral part of the process, as if you actually contribute something meaningful to any of this. That’s if any of it is real. You’re useless. It is your responsibility as a doctor, and as a soldier, to work for the common good. You’re a fucking selfish prick. You’re an adrenaline junkie that’s just lashed himself on to the coattails of someone who MAY be a fraction of as brilliant as the papers claim he is. You’re a fake. You both are. And you’re shit for a writer._

It’s not a particularly violent assault, but Sherlock doesn’t take it well when someone calls John’s honesty, integrity, or bravery into question. He likes it no better than John does when someone dare suggests that Sherlock is a fraud. The pair are a bit protective of each other in that way. In most ways, really. He dashed off what he intended to be a biting response, but when he read back over it before hitting post, he realized that he sounded more hurt than angry. His threats had come off sounding more childish than menacing. He sounded sentimental, much more so than he had realized.

He deletes his response and re-reads the comment. He’s surprised at the sentimentality it provoked, but there’s something more going on there, something that he’s missing. Instead of drafting another, more vitriolic response, as he had intended, he decides to see if he can find any other entries from this particular anonymous commenter. He finds another on the post before this one, and both were left sometime late yesterday evening. He can see that there are a number of other anonymous users that John has banned or comments that he has deleted.

Sherlock isn’t quite sure why the troll has gotten under his skin, but he doesn’t see a logical reason to continue looking for things that will only make him angry. He doesn’t delete the comment, but he makes sure that it shows up as “read” so that John will be less likely to stumble onto it himself. He wants to be able to track it should he be given a reason to later on. He makes a mental note to check back in a day or two and see if this particular commenter returns.

He closes the laptop and is about to go downstairs to make some tea when he hears John stirring in the bed behind him.

“Sherlock? What were you doing on my laptop?”

“I was just trying to be helpful. I took a look at your blog comments, and did some responding. I promise that I behaved myself.”

John smiles weakly. “I’m sure you did. Thank you.”

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Yes. And maybe you could help me downstairs? I think it might be good to walk around a bit, get out of this bed.”

“Are you sure that you’re feeling up to it? I don’t mind bringing the tea back up.”

“No, no. I’ll be fine. I’ll just relax on the couch, maybe watch some telly, read a book.”

Sherlock helped him put his robe on, and went ahead of him down the stairs, ready to catch him if he stumbled. John found his way to the toilet while Sherlock put on the kettle. He came back down the hall, wondering aloud about the contents of the bucket in the shower, and stretched out on the couch. Sherlock launched into a description of his current experiment while he made the tea and was explaining that the kitchen sink was too small, hence the bucket. When he brought John his tea a moment later, he found that John had fallen asleep again. Sherlock left the tea on the coffee table, fetched a glass of water to place beside it, and covered John with the afghan from the back of the sofa.

“How could anyone doubt John?” he asked himself quietly, looking down on his sleeping friend.

Sherlock shook his head. Then, remembering his experiment, he turned to go down the hall and check on the contents of that bucket.


	2. From Blog to Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets a book deal for his blog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> His blog would totally get a book deal, amirite?

John was coming up the stairs more quickly than he usually did after working a shift at the clinic. Usually, he’d be dragging himself up the stairs, ready to relax in his chair with a cup of tea and the newspaper. He burst through the door with an energy that was normally reserved for following Sherlock around the city, game on.

“Sherlock!” When he didn’t get an immediate reply, he yelled again, “Sherlock!”

John raced through the door into the kitchen, expecting to find Sherlock sitting behind his microscope, examining the tissue slides from the bucket experiment. But he wasn’t there.

“There’s no need to yell, John. I’m right here.”

Sherlock had slipped up behind John, who, already bursting with excitement, all but screamed when he heard Sherlock’s voice in his ear. He’d normally be irritated with Sherlock for sneaking up behind him, but this time he just grinned and grabbed Sherlock’s shoulders, making sure he couldn’t continue on to the table or anywhere else for that matter.

“Fantastic news. Fantastic.”

“That I’m right here? Well, you should feel honored, really.”

“No, Sherlock. I have fantastic news. Brilliant.”

“You have my undivided attention” says Sherlock as he raises his phone and starts texting someone. His lips are twitching into a grin, but he manages to keep it at bay.

“Put the bloody phone down! Pay attention!” John sounds frustrated, but the smile hasn’t left his face. When Sherlock mumbles something along the lines of “Won’t be but a moment, John,” he grabs the phone from Sherlock’s hands and throws it down the hall.

Sherlock glares down at John, hands still poised in front of him as if the phone were still there. “Spit it out.”

John claps him on the shoulders, still smiling. “It seems the blog has attracted something of a following in the states, and there’s a publisher that wants to make a book out of it. Start with some of the stuff that’s already there, polish it up a bit, but write new stuff about the other cases. Anything new would be mostly for the book, so the blog itself would have to change a bit, but that won’t be a problem. And you’d write the introduction and could add commentary and the like. Maybe a chapter on what happened during those two years away. They’re offering a huge advance, that means I could stop working at the clinic -”

“That would be convenient.”

“-and I could just work with you on cases and on the book. It’s bloody brilliant.”

Sherlock looks down at John, smile spread across his face. He’s already thought of a thousand ways he could tease his blogger, like asking if the book will be shelved in the fiction section, but he just smiles, gives John’s good shoulder a squeeze, a steps around him, going to retrieve his phone from where it landed on the floor.

“Mycroft had said something about your blog showing an increase in traffic from New York recently. I wondered if that might be a possibility.”

“Mycroft monitors my blog traffic?”

“I’m sure he has an underling do it, but he gets a report if anything is unusual.”

“Is he always watching us?”

“In some way or another, I’m sure he is. He knows the boundaries, though. And I’ve learned to deal with it as long as he respects those boundaries. It comes in handy now and then.” Sherlock went back to his texting.

John thought back on times when he’d gotten texts from Mycroft telling him information that he needed to know at just the moment he needed to know it, or when help had arrived at just the right time. He supposed he’d gotten use to Mycroft’s presence, though he was still annoyed by the way he’d just show up unexpectedly or send a car to summon him.

“Right. Well, mystery solved. He doesn’t have to wonder anymore. It seems an editor from here in London transferred to the New York office. Followed the blog religiously until you fell and I stopped writing. When he heard you were back from the dead, he started keeping an eye out for new updates. He loved the post about the bomb on the tube, and he took the idea to his boss. They called me today, while I was on my lunch break.”

“Have you agreed to anything yet?”

“No. Not yet. I told them I had to talk it over with you first, since it’s about you and I’m hoping you’ll help with the project. It should give you something to do during your downtime. They said they’d send over a preliminary contract for us to take a look at.”

“I’ve never given any thought to working on a book, but I do like the idea of you not working at the clinic anymore. I suppose I could help out a when I don’t have a case going. Are you sure that this is what you want to do? I thought you actually enjoyed being a doctor.”

“I did. I do, but working with you is...well, it’s lot more exciting than doing a prostate exam or having some kid throw up on me, which happened this morning-”

“Ah, yes. The scrubs. And I thought I got a faint whiff of vomit as I walked past you. It was your second - no third patient this morning. He told his mother he was feeling better when he woke up and wanted to go to school, so she gave him cereal for breakfast. Unfortunately, the milk had just turned. She had a cold, so she didn’t notice the slightly sour smell. All of the sugar in the cereal kept him from noticing the taste until he’d had several bites. He started to feel nauseated again, so his mother decided a visit to the clinic was in order. He managed to keep down his cereal, though, until he got on your exam table. Lucky you.”

John stared at him, narrowing his eyes in the way that Sherlock had come to know meant he was pretty sure he’d followed most of Sherlock’s reasoning, but that there were still a few gaps. He was waiting for Sherlock to fill them in.

“How’d you know it was cereal? And that it was a boy?”

Sherlock looked back down at his phone as he received a response to the message he’d just sent. “In addition to the faint smell of vomit, there’s a hint of sour milk. There’s also a bit of marshmallow stuck behind your ear from one of those monster cereals that is marketed to boys between the ages of 6 and 9 years old.”

John reaches up to pull the bit of marshmallow from behind his ear. “You’re right. As usual.”

Sherlock goes to sit in his chair, and John, his exhaustion finally catching up with him, falls down in his own, leaning back and resting his eyes.

“I like what we do, and I like writing about it. It would be damn near perfect if I could get paid a proper wage for it, so, yeah. I’d like to give it a go. See what they have to offer. You probably know a lawyer that can look over the contracts for us, right? Probably one that owes you a favor?”

“One or two.” Sherlock assumes the conversation is over, stares down at his phone, his fingers moving swiftly over the keys and his attention elsewhere. John realizes that there will not be any further conversation on the subject at the moment, so he gets up and heads off to take a shower.

Sherlock reads back over the exchange he’s just had with his brother via text.

**S - Publishing company source of NYC traffic?**

**M - Yes. Call was legitimate. Official offer is in John’s inbox now. He should take it.**

**S - Identity of Anonymous?**

**M - Still looking.**

**S - Threat?**

**M - Not likely. But we’ll keep watch.**

Sherlock could hear the shower going down the hall. He fetched his laptop and logged in to John’s blog. There’d been a new message from Anonymous every few days for the last two weeks, since John had been ill. They were all similar in tone, but not overtly threatening. Insulting, but not threatening. Sherlock was still bothered by them, but he hadn’t yet figured out why. For now, he was making sure to copy each one. He had a file going. And he’d asked Mycroft to monitor the traffic to the blog. Just in case.

He decided now was the time to delete them all, since John was likely to start looking back over his old posts soon, in preparation for the book. Sherlock heard John heading back down stairs after changing, and he closed the laptop, just as John made it to the kitchen and started going through the take away menus.

“Lestrade texted, inviting us round to the pub. I’d normally decline, but I thought a celebration might be in order. What do you say?” Sherlock stood and smiled, reaching for his scarf on the desk.

John tried not to look too surprised, but he was quite pleased by Sherlock’s offer.

“I’ll just grab my coat.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing any sort of fanfic. I'm not sure how long it's going to last, but I do have an end in mind. Please feel free to comment - but be gentle :)
> 
> 1/13/14 - This one is on hold for a bit, because I got all caught up in my other story, After the Crash. Check it out. I'll come back to this one when I'm finished there.


End file.
